Crisis Line
by Anakha the Silver
Summary: Vexen met Lucrecia by sheer chance. Eventually, she returned to Midgar while he tied off loose ends. Now, she is missing and the only clues are held by Detective Valentine. Where is Lucrecia, and can she be saved? -Alternate Universe, Vexen x Lucrecia-
1. Dreams

_He is standing in infinite black, and the only semblance of light is standing before him. She's so very familiar, and his arms ache to hold her again, just like that last time he did before she left. Her back is turned to him, hands clasped behind her back, and he wonders if she even knows he's there._

_He reaches for her, calls for her, but he grows no closer nor does his voice leave his throat. He's losing her, he feels, and he grows desperate. Even for one such as him, there's no way he's letting her go, not when they're so close to gaining everything they could ever need._

_Slowly, she looks over her shoulder. Then, she turns, and as she does, suddenly, it's no longer infinite black. They stand on the green, hazy hills of a mountain town. She stands beneath a tree, smiling at him—that soft, knowing smile that had always greeted him._

"_Vexen…"_

_Her voice echoes around him, and he can only remain silent, captivated by this place and her and all of it. She looks around, eyes finally coming back to him after gazing lovingly at her surroundings—a familiar place to her, he can guess._

"_I never had a hometown. My parents were always moving with me… …But this place—Nibelheim—was the closest to what I considered a home."_

_Her soft eyes close, eyes he'd often found himself lost in. She smiles, and he can feel the faint hints of a gentle breeze. His own eyes close, and he takes in the sweet scent of mountain air and fields of assorted flora._

"…_The reason I like picnics so much is that, when we were here, Mother and Father had enough time to do things with me. We would, every weekend, come out here and have a picnic. And it was nice."_

_She seems so happy, he notes, and something in him swells. He knows it can't be a heart—he lacks that. But still, he's happy for her. Because she's happy. And isn't that all that matters, really?_

"…_I want to bring you here. All sides of you. Even and Vexen both, and we can sit out under the old tree and have a picnic, just the two of us. And we can let my parents know…"_

_His arms ache even more. He misses her. He wants to hold her, and something deep down tells him that something is wrong. This isn't right…_

"…_That I've finally found what it is I've always needed most."_

_Everything suddenly goes white white white and he can't see. The light is blinding and scathing, and he recoils. He's breaking apart, burning up, on fire and everything is white and there's a Cheshire grin and blazing green eyes and—_

His eyes fly open and he's suddenly sitting up, gasping for breath. A dream turned nightmare… And he so rarely dreams, so that makes it not only worse but much more easily remembered. There's a pain in his chest and extremities, like parts of him had been on fire.

Lucrecia's words from the dream haunt him, and he can feel something is wrong. Never before had she appeared in his dreams, and most definitely not in such a hopeful way—almost like a cryptic farewell.

Leather-clad fingers rub his temples. He'd fallen asleep at work, and the dream is sorely reminding him that he's so, so close to being done with all these loose ends. Then, and only then, can he…

Emerald eyes hesitantly glance over to the glass case nearby, where a nearly-blinding white sliver of something rests. The chance to become Even again, trapped within a brilliant white wedge of some inexplicable material.

He's reminded of his friends, and what happened to each of them. Some of them chose to take back their hearts. The main one he can recall is Lexaeus. He had returned to Aeleus and Aerith, and his biological son, Sora, is to spend summers with him in Radiant Garden.

Others, like Zexion, had chosen to remain Nobodies. Their choice, in the end, and he can honestly see the appeal. But Vexen has always been one to stubbornly see something through to the end if he can. Scrapping things causes waste and resources are always limited.

With a sigh, he shakes his head, pushing himself up to stand. He'd tied up all his experiments by now. It had taken almost half a year, but he'd finally managed it. Now, he needs to clean up, destroy everything he doesn't want falling into wrong hands, and then, find Lucrecia.

She had departed to Midgar, her home world. After the disaster of what had happened with her beloved adoptive children the Tsviets, she had chosen to try and right things in her world. Of all of them, only Nero and Weiss' locations are known—working as a delivery boy and a server in a restaurant in Twilight Town with a lavender-haired girl. Rosso had died, victim of her own madness, and the one known as Azul had been lost before they'd found him.

There had been no emotional good-bye. They had promised each other, he and Lucrecia, that they would see each other again. He wants her to be the first thing Even sees, after all, so that he knows that, yes, someone is waiting and he never has to be alone again.

Once more, his mind turns to the dream, and he looks hesitantly around. Usually, he would finish here, but… …The dream still disturbs him, especially the bit about her disappearing and how much like a subtle farewell that had been.

With a frustrated groan, Vexen stands up. Damn it all. She's such an oblivious woman, and she's likely gotten herself into some sticky situation that she needs him to get her out of. Damn that woman to Darkness and back… Such an annoying and delusional and _downright beautiful_ woman.

He shakes his head again, looking back to make sure everything's place is memorized, then he opens a corridor and steps through. Midgar shouldn't be too hard to find, after all. He just has to head to Lucrecia's old ship and reverse the coordinates.

This should only be a quick trip, after all.


	2. Midgar

From the way Lucrecia had talked about this place, he had expected something entirely different. Grand, beautiful, perhaps a cloud-free sky and borderline Paradise. But instead, Midgar is dreary, dull, dingy place. There is graffiti everywhere, riff-raff running around and doing as they please, and don't even get him started on the degree of pollution.

The air is rife with the scent of decay. Even the people seem to be hollow—even more so than him. Everything they want or need is handed to them on a silver platter, he supposes, with no reason to complain or, well, even think. No wonder this is an empire of sorts.

Instant gratification, keeping the masses at your beck and call since the dawn of time.

Momentarily, Vexen has to wonder how such a bright mind in Lucrecia happened to be nurtured in this dull-gray world where everything is done so as to prevent free thought. Outside of passing laws, it seems.

Oh, wait. That's why.

He's staring at a world map, and he realizes that, while the world is called Midgar, it's only named after the capital city. There are smaller towns beyond it, and he begins to memorize the names. Kalm, Wutai, Costa del Sol, Rocket Town, Nibelheim…

The last one causes something in him to tighten up. He most definitely knows _that_ name. Lucrecia used to go on and on about that town, and how she really loved the hills just outside it. She'd called it beautiful, and there had always been a dreamy look in her eye.

He shakes the thoughts in his head, and instead begins to walk toward the large, imposing building in the distance. The large words across its front tell him that this is his destination if he's to look for Lucrecia.

~*~

"I'm looking for someone."

The receptionist looks up, fake smile plastered across her face. She blinks in question, as if she's confused on his request. He gives an exasperated sigh. Are the desk employees of this 'great empire' really so brainless?

"I am looking for someone. Understand?"

She smiles, and the _clak-clak_ing of keyboard keys fills a momentary void. Finally, she looks back up to him, still with that fake smile. He's really starting to hate it, and she hasn't even spoken yet. This does not bode well.

"Name of employee, please?"

Oh, good. She doesn't seem to be entirely daft, or at least it doesn't show in her voice. That's at least a relief. Now, hopefully, she won't mess such a simple thing as an employee search up.

"Lucrecia Crescent."

He states it matter-of-factly, and is greeted once more by the _clak-clak-clak_ of fingers on keys. There's a moment of silence, a brief look of confusion flashing through dark eyes, and then more of the infernal sound. If this place weren't so quiet and oddly sterile in contrast to the outside of the building, he'd not be nearly as aggravated.

"…I'm sorry, but there has never been a ShinRa employee by that name."

…What? Vexen can only blink, absolutely bewildered by this news. She had worked with ShinRa; he knows it, because he can recount the entire inside of this very lobby from what she'd told him in the past. He's not going to stand for this.

"Perhaps you're looking in the wrong area, you blundering moron. She was one of the lead scientists on the Deepground project." Vexen says, resting clenched fists on the desk. The woman suddenly seems aware that the temperature is dropping, and she does another quick search.

"…I'm sorry, but there are no records of such a project. Please, fill out a yellow inquiry form and we will contact you as soon as we can." A rehearsed line and it only proves to annoy him further. In fact, there's ice forming at his fingertips.

"I would like to speak to whoever is in charge, as I do not take well to finding out that my significant other is missing. If you don't connect me with someone higher up than a lowly information desk worker, well… It's your choice, now, isn't it?"

Suddenly, an alarm is blaring. The lobby is being evacuated, the sounds of a quiet panic rushing to his ears. He really needs to learn to watch his temper, because it seems he lost it yet again. And now, he's in trouble—not that he can't handle it.

He turns around, preparing for a simple fight against lowly guards—Vexen hardly looks a risk. However, he's quickly greeted by something entirely different. He can feel a small muscle in his forehead, right near his left brow, twitch ever so slightly.

Robots. Why robots? He has no reason to dismantle robots. No, that's something only Xigbar and Xaldin would enjoy. Not him, though. Robots are something he rather despises fighting. Give him flesh and blood, because then he can use his vast repertoire of scientific knowledge to disable his opponent with minimal damage to both of them.

But, no. He's given Darkness-damned _robots._

With an aggravated groan not unlike the one given before, his shield is called up and he's very quickly defending from fiery blasts. He returns fire with Blizzaga spells, quickly reducing said annoyances to nothing more than scrap metal.

With them dispatched, he shoots a rather annoyed grin back at the woman at the desk. She whimpers, then quickly holds her hands up in surrender. Their first line of defense fell, of course, and rather easily. Best to just go along.

"The ShinRa Science Department, please." he asks in a rather menacing tone. She gives a soft sound of fear, then quickly scrambles to type at her keyboard again. That damned noise again… But he'll deal with it for the moment.

"Th-The ShinRa Electric Power Company's Department of Science, led by one Professor H-Hojo, is on Floor Sixty-Seven and is accessible from the normal elevator!" she quickly recounts. With a nod, Vexen banishes his shield and heads off to the elevator.

Professor Hojo is in charge, then? So he'll have to speak to him to find out anything about Doctor Crescent. Hopefully, this won't be another battle of the wills.


End file.
